A concept to evaluate activity-based acoustic settings in preschools for children aged three to six

Abstract

Describing common noise patterns caused by different activities and situations in educational buildings is a complex topic. First categorizations of activities have been developed for primary schools addressing children starting from the age of six. They were based on the teacher-to-children-communication pathways or the teaching activity, such as math class versus music lessons. Until now, preschools and, thus, children younger than six have been rarely examined in previous literature. This study seeks to investigate activities in preschools for the age group of three-to six-year-olds and discusses a categorization of activity patterns concerning the educators-to-children interaction and communication pathways. For this, acoustic measurements were conducted in preschools. Differences in selected noise descriptors (e.g., sound pressure level and psychoacoustic parameters) were explored and discussed with respect to the proposed categorization. Furthermore, this study focuses on adding children’s points of view into the evaluation by integrating effects assessed using a child head and torso simulator.